...I bet this girl likes it better. I just finished retouching this and realized (again) that making people feel good is one of the hugest part of the photography business. I wish I could see how good they feel after seeing the retouched images, but I'm only the digital guy. Customers don't "really" exists to me.

Me thinks you are too humble. That is one exceptional job of retouching. I like how natural the skin texture came out after what is some extensive retouching. Love to learn your technique for accomplishing this.

Wow, just when I thought I was starting to feel more comfortable with PS I am faced with hard proof of what a real master can do. Unbelievable stuff...that program never ceases to amaze me when its in the right hands.

So Moscato, any chance that you teach PS for photographers?

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My goal in life is to rid the world of ignorance...mainly my own.

Seems like an appropriate opening for something I've been thinking about since reading KCMai's comments regarding johne's excellent "Swimming Lady" composite.
WAY back when, I read "Up the Organization" by Robert Townsend. In it, he tells a little anecdote about the importance of knowing what your business is. As I recall, the major telegraph company of the day turned down the opportunity to buy controlling interest in the telephone(?) because, clearly, they were in the telegraph business. If they had realized that they were actually in the communications business, things might be different for Western Union today.
It's happening (has happened?) to photography with digital processing, even more than retouching. Seems to me that the image is the issue, not whether it accurately contains all of the information that was contained in the collection of photons bounced off the subject and trapped on the sensor - but simply, did you get the image you wanted to create. Seems to me that today, more than ever, the business is creating images, not "photographing."
Just thought I'd throw that out there.

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"Keeping shooting will do more for the excellence of your photography than most any camera will!" JimmyD, PGS Extraordinaire.

lsc1 & Carpe Imago - Yes, I will share some retouching ideas when I have some time. (next few days) I will work with the above image when I do since you have already seen it.Photomart - ty. The end goal is always to please the client with what they want. The real challenge is that sometimes they do not know what they even want. It's sort of a forcasting art/business.

jford - Well put. Recently I purchased a book titled "Networking Visually" and it told that very same story of the telegraph companies turning down the phone. All they needed to do was to step back another step and see that their business was to communicate. -- I have that same acute angle on photography as well that you mentioned. It's about the what comes in the end. Create it as you would like. Of course there are some rules and practical ideas, but with the extensive technology that we have and are gaining it becomes such a broad creative process.